Project Arcturus was an ambitious scientific project aimed at the development of a new energy source, far more powerful than a ZPM because it extracts zero-point energy from our own universe instead of the ZPM's artificially-created region of subspace. It was started by the Ancients as the Ancients' last and possibly greatest discovery before Ascension, a vaunted title usually reserved for the Stargates. The core of Project Arcturus is a small white sphere with six spikes inside a large space. The region is surrounded by a powerful containment field, and Arcturus extracts zero-point energy from within this region.

After finding the planet, Chaos attempted to complete the work started by the Ancients. However, the project eventually was deemed impossible, and forgotten about. The remains of the project were re-discovered years later by a Republic expedition and the republic finished the project, though not with the result they had initially wanted. The reactor chamber could create, but not store, the energy. With no safe way to harness this energy, it was useless as a power source. But after one of the last power ups of the reactor, a scientist watched as the reactor tried to vent the power, and a bright blue burst of energy spewed out of the cooling vent. This inspired him to use the technology in large gun emplacments, to fire balls of pure energy at would-be foes, creating a deadly weapon that can shoot rapid fire, with enough force to bring down entire armadas in minutes.